Latest on Casey Cochran, Graham Stewart

As I promised in the previous entry, I have some stuff to pass on off my interview with Paul Pasqualoni this morning.

Pasqualoni said freshman quarterback and two-time Gatorade state player of the year Casey Cochran's broken left thumb figures to hamper him for 4-6 weeks with Pasqualoni figuring it could be closer to six weeks than four.

Pasqualoni will have to wait a couple of weeks to see how bulky the cast is on Cochran's left hand to see whether he'll be able to take snaps when camp opens.

"Mentally, Casey is on top of things so he'll still be learning," Pasqualoni said, "He'll still be out there and getting reps. If he is not getting the actual physical rep, he will be getting the mental rep. It is just a matter of 'will he be able to take a snap under the center?' The shotgun stuff he will be able to handle. I don't know how he'll configure or what they can configure with the cast so that is kind of a TBA deal, we will have to wait and see what happens. Six weeks puts us at just about the start of the season."

As for another highly-touted former Connecticut high school star, Pasqualoni didn't have much information on whether Florida transfer and former Xavier High star Graham Stewart would be eligible this season.

"I really don't know exactly when that committee meets (to rule on Stewart's hardship request to not have to sit out a season after transferring) but obviously time is getting a little short right now," Pasqualoni said. "The good news is he does have a redshirt year because he did play last year as a true freshman so he is what I would consider a guy who has four years to play three. If it works out this year, that's great. If not, then he will practice and learn the system and still have three years with us."

I asked Pasqualoni that if every player he was expecting to be returning to the team in the fall would be doing so and he said "at this point, yeah."

Pasqualoni has been relieved that it has been a relatively quiet summer in terms of off the field issues with the current Huskies.

"You have 85 guys, it's like anything else there are going to be things that come up with 85 people," Pasqualoni said. "Not every day is going to go perfect so you just hope that there are no real big issues. You hope that the behavior issues - knock on wood - the guys have been really good but we still two weeks left. You worry about the injury stuff. They are here running and lifting. They could get hurt in the weight room they can get hurt conditioning. They can pull hamstrings, groins and all that other stuff so you are hoping that all this stuff doesn't happen. Unfortunately for Casey, he was home riding his bike, hit the curb and fell."

Pasqualoni couldn't comment on the status of former Clemson receiver Bryce McNeal, who indicated back in January that he planned to transfer to UConn or Andreas Knappe, a 6-9 offensive line recruit from Denmark.

Of the duo, it seems as if Knappe is the more likely to play for the Huskies in the upcoming season. McNeal visited Louisville over the weekend and has yet to enroll at UConn so it figures to be more of a wait and see deal with him.

I also got a position by position breakdown from Pasqualoni but I'll probably wait to post that until we get closer to Big East media day.

I did want to pass on the fact that I created a facebook page where I will be posting links to stories, blogs and videos so feel free to go to https://www.facebook.com/UConnFootball and like the page if you wish.